


The Visitor

by Magichorse



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Carlos Backstory, M/M, Outside Night Vale, POV Carlos (Welcome to Night Vale), Pre-Relationship, Religion, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-09
Updated: 2015-01-09
Packaged: 2018-03-06 19:00:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3145073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magichorse/pseuds/Magichorse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Throughout his life Carlos has been visited by a being he suspects of being an angel, which is a highly unscientific visitor to have. He does his best to ignore the creature, until one day he can no longer avoid the course that has been laid for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Visitor

**Author's Note:**

> The author recommends you picture a barn owl in your mind before reading this story.

Father Tomás clasped his hands upon his wide oak desk and looked across at the sullen boy of eight years scuffing his shoes against the floor, eyes cast downward and obscured by a mop of dark hair. He had been pastor at Saint Mary’s for nearly two decades, and this timeless scene played out between headmaster and pupil felt as comfortable and familiar to him as the confessional booth.

“Do you know why you’re here in my office, Carlos?” Father Tomás began.

“Because I told Sister Juanita I saw an angel.”

He had a lot of experience with children seeing angels and demons and saints, imaginations running wild with stories from the Holy Book. It was very common at this age. Most would admit under gentle pressure to having exaggerated a bit. Carlos claiming to see angels was perplexing because as far as he knew, Carlos was not prone to lying or acting out for attention. He was, in fact, notorious for his opposition to all the mystical aspects of the faith and quite a difficult pupil to engage with in Bible study. The boy had recently made one of his new hires cry.

“Yes,” he said to Carlos, “When I heard that, I thought to myself, I would like to talk to you.”

Carlos nodded, still not daring to look him in the eye.

“Carlos, is there anything going on at home?” he asked the boy directly but not unkindly.

Carlos’s head jerked up at that, surprised.

“A-at home?” he asked, “No, my family is okay. We’re good.”

“And you feel safe here at school? No one is hurting you, are they?”

“No, no one! I like school!”

“Okay,” he said reassuringly, “I ask because sometimes when children come to me seeing angels, it’s because they are having a hard time. Angels are beings that guide and protect, and a lot of people feel they aren’t getting that from the people around them. You know you can always come to me if you feel that way.”

Carlos nodded to show he understood, but still looked uncertain about whether he was in trouble or not.

“I only asked Sister Juanita about angels because I thought she might know some books that were more scientific than the Bible about them.”

Father Tomás nodded as Carlos talked and smiled as he finished. “I’m afraid the Bible is the only primary source we have about angels. They aren’t exactly scientific phenomena.”

“I knew it,” he said, almost to himself, “They aren’t real. I shouldn’t be seeing these things. The Visitor…the angel just comes and goes for no reason, but when it comes, I feel...it makes me feel calm, protected, but when it goes I’m scared because I can’t explain what it really is or what I’m seeing it.”

“Now that, I can’t say,” said Father Tomás with a small shrug to try to show Carlos how unperturbed he was with this revelation, “The divine is often unknowable. But it sounds like quite a lovely creature. Would you describe it to me?”

“It’s very tall,” said Carlos after thinking for a moment, “And it’s mostly white but its face is black.”

“Okay, it’s tall and does it have wings?”

“Yes, lots, and two long arms and two long legs, and lots of feathers, but it isn’t fully a human or fully a bird. It’s like a human bird covered in light.”

“A bird, like the dove that appeared to Saint Mary as a messenger?”

“No, like an owl,” said Carlos firmly.

“Owls are supposed to be very wise, it seems like a good fit for you.”

“Owls aren’t wise,” he protested, “People just used to think that before science. Studies show that they aren’t smarter than average for a bird.”

Father Tomás smiled. “You know who’s very smart, Carlos, is you.”

The boy looked pleased but a little wary.

“Yeah?”

“You’re very direct. Irreverent, sometimes, I would say, and I know you know what that word means since I have had you across from my desk before to discuss it. But that’s what I _like_ about you, Carlos. You’re critical because you want the truth of things. You would make a great priest, you know.”

The boy looked down again, but was polite enough to say ‘Thank you, father’ as he knew he should. Father Tomás recognized he had taken the wrong tack, though he had meant well.

“You would make a great anything, Carlos,” he amended, “If the Mysteries of the faith do not draw you as they drew me in my youth, there remain enough mysteries the world over, God knows.”

“I want to know them all,” said Carlos softly, earnestly.

“I know, and I believe you will do many great things because of it. But Carlos, if I may, I am a man of the cloth and things such as angels are my field of expertise, so…”

He paused to see if the boy was listening, and saw that Carlos was paying rapt attention.

“Whoever or whatever this Visitor is to you, and whether or not you are able to make sense of its presence in your life, if it brings you a sense of peace, I urge you to accept it. There will be many things in your life that defy explanation and are beautiful not in spite of that, but for that reason alone. Keep an open mind, Carlos, and it will open your heart as well.”

Carlos nodded but Father Tomás was not sure he did understand. God willing, though, he would some day.

“Okay, Mr. Mejía, you’re excused.”

***

Carlos Riviera Mejía stepped out of Father Tomás’s office and into the deserted hallway, mind already beginning to replay the conversation he’d just had. Anxiety crept up to resume its place in his chest but a sensation like a sunbeam falling across his face made him look up.

The Visitor was standing across from him, still and silent and radiant as always. It towered gracefully over him, long neck inclined kindly down to peer at him from its midnight, heart-shaped face.

The two regarded each other. He fought at first to recall some of his absent alarm, his logical brain urging his slow, peaceful heart to beat faster and his relaxed muscles to tense, to reject this vision, but he could not do it.

Just as suddenly as it had arrived, The Visitor was gone but left the feeling of serenity in its wake. He decided to put it out of his mind. He should dedicate his energies to academic questions he could hope to find the answers to, not questions like ‘are angels real?’ or ‘is a belief in angels at odds with scientific inquiry?’

From that point on, Carlos declined to engage in debates of the existence of God and miracles, and was mercifully silent on the inconsistencies introduced in the Holy Book. He redoubled his efforts instead in mathematics and the sciences, excelling beyond expectations.

At the end of the year, Brother Joel, who had months ago sat across from Father Tomás in tears over Carlos’s refusal to stop asking questions about the physical dimensions of Noah’s ark and the exact number of species in existence at the time of the flood, delivered to the pastor’s desk, without comment, Carlos’s final paper for the year. It was beautifully written and perfectly sourced with Old and New Testament passages.

The title read: ‘The Hierarchy of Angels in the Tiered Heavens’

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. 
> 
> I am excited to see where this piece goes and would love to hear your thoughts on the premise, dear readers. I've written portions of future chapters, but am as yet unsure exactly how this will unfold or how long it will be. I would love this to build slowly. We'll see how much self control I have. I tend to want to rush right to gay boys kissing, but, it would be better to earn it, right? Right. Patience.


End file.
